Increasing Prevalence of Multidrug-Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae in the United States

In the United States, Streptococcus pneumoniae is the most commonly identified bacterial cause of meningitis, 1 otitis media, 2 , 3 and community-acquired pneumonia, 4 and it is a frequent cause of bacteremia. In the past, approximately 80 percent of patients hospitalized with bacteremic pneumococcal infections died of their illness. 5 With effective antimicrobial agents, mortality has decreased but remains at nearly 20 percent for bacteremic disease in elderly adults. 5 , 6 S. pneumoniae strains that had a high level of resistance to penicillin and other antimicrobial agents appeared in the United States in the early 1990s. 7 The emergence of S. pneumoniae with antimicrobial resistance is . . .